


For The Long Night Ahead

by sdwolfpup



Category: Z Nation (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, First Time, Warphy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 21:02:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13016070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sdwolfpup/pseuds/sdwolfpup
Summary: Chances like this did not come along often and he wasn't an idiot.Warren and Murphy the night before they go to D.C.





	For The Long Night Ahead

**Author's Note:**

> Set after 4x11 and before whatever's going to happen in 4x12. Title from Jason Gallagher's "Hero."

They stopped that night at a little farmhouse outside of DC. It was two stories tall, clean, and empty of any zombies, which was a small miracle in itself. The heavy silence of the van ride followed them into the house and after a meal of protein bars that even Doc couldn't lighten, they parted ways for bed. There was an unspoken agreement to give Warren the master bedroom, Doc and 10k settled on bunk beds in the kids' room and Sarge found a comfortable loveseat in the back den. 

Which left Murphy with the couch in the living room but he didn't feel much like sleeping. The house had a well so after a quick, localized scrub, he relaxed on the porch swing out front, staring up into the wide, wide sky and rocking softly. Stars burst across the night like someone had spilled a bottle of glitter. Murphy had stopped noticing the sky years ago, but tonight he drank in every gleaming light and sank into his own smallness. D.C. tomorrow to get the president and then they would have to stop Zona from annihilating every last human on the continent. 

Most likely this would be his last night seeing the stars. 

He didn't have Warren's steely resolve, Doc's tightly clenched hope. Instead he had Lucy to keep him going even in the face of terrible odds. He would go down fighting, if only to honor her. 

The screen door opened and Warren stepped onto the porch. “Hey,” she said.

“Couldn't sleep?”

She pursed her lips, put her arms around herself against the cool night air. “Do you mind?” she asked, nodding at the swing.

Murphy patted it and she sat next to him, rigid. She'd been more reserved than usual since Mercy Labs, just the one comment about the sunset and nothing for hours after. He watched her staring out into the darkness. “You did the right thing,” he said to the side of her face, and was startled when her whole body crumpled, her hands covering her face, shoulders rounding. “Hey, hey,” he said to her choked cries. Everything she had pushed away that day – maybe since she'd woken from her coma – seemed to come bursting forth now. Acting on instinct, Murphy pulled Warren against his chest, wrapping his arm around her.

Her body shook with the force of her crying, as though each sob had to fight its way out. He worried the others would wake and somehow stopper this up again, so he hummed quietly under his breath as he had when Lucy was a baby, and rested his chin on the top of her head. Warren's body relaxed against his and after another minute all he heard were crickets and her soft, hiccuping breaths. The front of his shirt was damp and he was suddenly very aware of Warren's breasts pressing against him. In another place, another night, he might have extricated himself quickly. But tonight, with the stars shining into eternity all around them, and the future a dark question in front of them, he pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head. 

Warren pulled back a little to look up at him, eyes wet and questioning. She smelled good. He didn't know how she did it in the apocalypse, but somehow the sweat and the dirt was like an earthy perfume on her skin, when it only made the rest of them stink. 

“Murphy,” she whispered, but it wasn't a no, so he leaned forward a little and she met him halfway, kissing him gently. Her lips were soft and salty, and instead of pushing harder he broke the kiss, licked the taste of her tears off of his lips. They were both breathing harder, and his skin prickled with the brush of her hair. Her eyes were dry now. She brought her hand up to touch his cheek, and then moved it back and threaded her fingers in his hair, pulling his head back down to hers. 

Where their first kiss had been a tentative taste, this second time was hard and desperate. Warren's hot mouth on his burned him as surely as the Black Rainbow visions. Her grip on his hair was tight, almost painful, but he put his hands on her waist and pulled her closer. She opened her mouth under his and moaned, and it shot straight through him. 

She was cool under his hands, a stark contrast to the heat of her lips and tongue exploring his. He'd imagined this moment in a hundred different ways and every one fell short of the reality consuming him now. She threw her leg over his to straddle his lap and Murphy groaned so loudly he was sure the others had heard it. But he didn't care, he didn't care about anything except kissing Warren and the way her strong hands were gripping his shoulders like she'd fly away without that anchor. 

Her hands slid down his chest towards his belt and he shivered as her nails left electric sparks in their path through the cotton of his shirt. The rocking chair squeaked as they shifted in it, and the planks dug hard into his back. He covered her hands with one of his on the belt buckle and she broke the kiss to look at him curiously. 

“The bed?” he asked, hating to break the spell. But she just nodded and slithered off of his lap and tugged him up with her. They stumbled through the unfamiliar house until Murphy dragged her into the master bedroom and shut the door behind them. 

He eyed the flowery bed with its too many pillows. “Looks like a grandma bed.”

“Shut up, Murphy,” Warren said, her voice low. She shoved him onto the bed and climbed on top of him again, kissing him deeply. He fumbled at what he thought were the waist of her pants, but couldn't get any purchase on the skintight outfit to tug them off. 

“You gotta help me here, Roberta,” he said, pulling at her clothes. He kissed the soft skin at the top of her breasts that showed through the hole in her shirt. 

She laughed softly and pulled back. “I'll do mine, you do yours.” 

He tugged his pants and underwear off, had lost his jacket already somewhere downstairs. When he looked back, she was naked and glowing before him and he ached with wanting her. She was all round curves, long muscles, and faint scars and he finally understood why artists really painted nudes.

“All of it,” she ordered, nodding at his chest. 

He touched one of zombie bites under his shirt, the one he'd been picking at most recently. “Are you sure?”

“Ain't nothing I haven't seen before,” she said. “I mean, that's new,” she added looking lower, and his erection somehow got harder. 

Chances like this did not come along often and he wasn't an idiot. He pulled off his shirt and her eyes widened a little at the state of his bites, but she stepped closer and pressed her hands, now hot as coals, against his chest. Warren tilted her head back to stare up at him. 

“You're too damn tall,” she murmured.

In answer he picked her up and swallowed her surprised gasp with his hungry kiss. Her strong body rubbed eagerly against his and he laid her down on the bed. 

“There, now we're even,” he said, and he pressed his hard length against her warmth. She grabbed his ass to pull him closer, and he trembled when he slid full into her. “Jesus,” he whispered into her pale hair, kneading the flower bedspread to try to hold onto his control. 

Even though the house was still cool, Warren around and beneath him was a wet, hot revelation. He breathed her in until his lungs were full and then breathed deeper still. She moved beneath him, urging him faster with her sharp nails. Every time he tried to slow and make it last, she dug in and whispered, “please, please” and he may have once been the zombie messiah but he was mostly just a man now and so Murphy let go, thrusting hard and fast into her while he burned where their sweaty bodies slid together. 

“God, yes,” she moaned in his ear. Murphy tugged her earlobe with his teeth, nipped her shoulder, tasted the salt of her skin and the inferno underneath. She writhed beneath him and he felt himself getting closer, so he lifted himself up enough to move his hand between them, guiding her over the edge first with a high-pitched cry she didn't bother to hold back. She went rigid and grasping and the heat and pressure was too much to bear. Murphy groaned low, biting back anything louder, and he dissolved in her arms like ash. 

He shuddered as he pulled out and collapsed next to her on the bed, panting.

“I just want you to know,” he said between breaths, “that's not why I comforted you.”

Warren shook her head. “Just be quiet,” she said softly, breathing hard as he was. 

Murphy turned his head to look at her, at the moonlight bathing her body. He'd drink her in now, in case she was already regretting this. Warren turned to meet his gaze and he saw hope and hurt interlaced in the deep dark of her eyes. She reached over and pressed her palm to his cheek with a steady hand. “Thank you,” she said.

“Any time, believe me.”

She closed her eyes and laughed a little. “I meant for the comfort.”

“Well, you're welcome.” He took her hand and kissed the palm. Her eyes flew open, but she didn't pull away. “Any time for that, too.”

“Empathy looks good on you.” 

“I'll take that as a compliment.”

Warren shifted onto her side, pressed her hand against his heart. He wrapped his fingers around hers. “About the rest of it-”

“We don't have to talk about it,” he said quickly. “It's the apocalypse, stuff happens.”

“I was going to say,” she went on firmly, “next time we should use a condom.”

Murphy blinked. “Oh. Really?”

She nodded. “That was pretty good.”

“Pretty good?” He scoffed. “Now I'm insulted.”

“I'll make it up to you,” she murmured, and his whole body flushed. 

This part, the after part, Murphy had never been particularly good with. He looked down at their hands linked together on his chest and bit back a snarky reply. Sometimes shutting up was the best choice. Warren seemed to agree, because she laid back down and snuggled against his side, her head on his arm. He brushed his fingers over her shoulder, along her back, mapping out the scars along the way. 

“I didn't want to do it,” she whispered long after he thought she'd fallen asleep. Murphy's hand stilled, uncertain. “Andrew. I wish there had been another way.” He felt a tear drip onto his chest. 

“I know,” he said. It was all he could say. Warren already knew she'd made the right decision. Sometimes you just had to live with how awful the right decision could be. 

She let out a slow, unsteady breath and her body relaxed against his. “Get some sleep,” she finally said, yawning. “Long day tomorrow.”

He nodded, and then watched her sleep til morning.


End file.
